


A Genuine Mistake

by toyhto



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5755285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What the hell was wrong with him, how could he fix it, and how on earth would he prevent Sherlock from noticing that he was going mad?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Genuine Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, the first fic I wrote about Sherlock and John. Maediocremuon did the betaing for me, thank you so much!

A genuine mistake. That’s what it had been.  
  
Unfortunately, his heart was still beating far too fast. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and tried not to worry about what Sherlock must have been thinking.  
  
He didn’t even really know what had been going on in his own mind, only that it really wasn’t functioning as it should.  
  
‘John,’ Sherlock had been shouting barely a minute ago, rushing through the main door, ‘I really have to have you. Now.’  
  
‘What?’ he had barked from his armchair, where he had been sitting and quietly minding his own business. He had really needed some explanation, like any sane man would, when your flatmate was rushing in after being away for a whole day without a single text message, and when things like ‘ _I really have to have you’_ were being said with an urgent tone.  
  
‘Please,’ Sherlock had said, impatient. ‘Get down to the floor. On your back. Quick, John, I haven’t got the whole day for this.’  
  
Of course, he also should have been asking himself why the heck he always did what Sherlock asked him to. This time he hadn’t even taken time to argue first. No, he had just put his laptop aside and first gone to his knees, a bit awkwardly, and then he had been on the floor, on his back, just lying there while Sherlock did his thing.  
  
‘No, it doesn’t work,’ Sherlock was muttering to himself, ‘can’t do that with an axe, unless he was tied down at first. Improbable, perhaps, not impossible. Should probably falsify before eliminating.’  
  
John’s heart was slowly coming back to its senses, finally. Maybe Sherlock had been too busy to recognise its pounding in the first place. Well, his chances for that were quite near zero, but he could still hope.  
  
Or maybe Sherlock was just too uninterested to consider why his best mate and colleague had had some trouble breathing a few moments ago. That was much more probable.  
  
John sighed as quietly as he could. It was all good. Sherlock wasn’t going to get interested in the stupid little puzzle about John being out of breath. He wasn’t going to try to find answers for questions that John himself didn’t even want to ask.  
  
‘But why the blood?’ Sherlock was going on, staring at John’s face but clearly seeing something else instead. ‘If there were no rope and it couldn’t be an axe, why all the blood? What am I missing here?’  
  
Having said that, he grabbed his own hair with his hands, turned around, and walked to the other side of the room. John didn’t dare move but saw the other man stopping by the window, looking at the street and talking to himself so loudly, as usual, that John once again wondered if Sherlock just wanted everyone else to hear how brilliantly his brain was working.  
  
Or maybe it was just for John. Maybe it was for John to keep up, to help a little or at least to admire. He thought about that and sighed deeply, turning to stare at the ceiling instead of Sherlock. There was a really peculiar stain on the ceiling that John was quite sure he hadn’t seen before. Sherlock would probably know how it had ended up there, and, well, John probably wouldn’t even want to know.  
  
John waited a few minutes for Sherlock to come back and finish whatever it was that he had been doing with him, mumbling about axes and blood and measuring John and even touching him slightly a few times with his weirdly cold fingers. Sherlock probably hadn’t even recognised that his fingers had pressed a few seconds against John’s forehead. John was just a corpse for him, apparently, a corpse of someone who might have been murdered by axe if only he had been tied down.  
  
John sighed again. Lying on the floor felt weirdly comfortable just now. And of course Sherlock wouldn’t realise that he had been touching him. He was just considering some facts, thinking about some case. It was John who was being weird.  
  
‘Sherlock?’ John called after a while. ‘Can I get up now? Do you still need me lying here?’  
  
Sherlock just kept on going through the list of numbers that, for John, seemed to be quite random. Well, he hadn’t been waiting for him to answer. He rose to a sitting position but didn’t dare to move more.  
  
‘Oh, John,’ Sherlock said after, well, about twelve minutes, suddenly turning around to face him, both his hands raised in front of him like he was trying to catch something in the air. ‘The umbrella. They didn’t find it. So obvious. It was raining, after all.’  
  
John opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Sherlock had rushed out of the door. He closed his mouth again and was somewhere between getting really angry at himself and getting really frustrated with his best mate, when Sherlock’s upper body appeared in the doorway again.  
  
‘And, well, thank you,’ Sherlock said with a somehow intense stare at John’s eyes.  
  
John opened his mouth again, but couldn’t say one word before Sherlock was gone again.  
  
‘Shit,’ he said to himself, and, after a few seconds’ consideration, lied back down to the floor.  
  
***  
  
So, he was being weird.  
  
So, there had been a moment when something completely different had run through his mind, when Sherlock had told him to lie on the floor.  
  
So, he was a straight man with great appreciation for breasts and other quite feminine body parts, who clearly had some kind of a (normal, friendly, and definitely not sexual) obsession with his best friend.  
  
It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise. Sherlock was brilliant, after all. He was one of a kind, in a good way and also quite often in a very irritating way. And John was living and working with him. No one could live and work with Sherlock Holmes and not be influenced by him. No one could be immune to the fact that Sherlock was, at his best, incredible.  
  
Okay, that probably wasn’t the bottom of it. There definitely was something weird going on in John’s head, something that he hadn’t invited in, and it had something to do with Sherlock and those stupid mistakes like earlier today, when Sherlock had asked him to lay down and for a moment he had thought – oh, shit.  
  
John rose to his feet. Sherlock had been away for hours. It was almost dark. He threw a glance at his phone that was lying on the sofa and then grimaced. He could very well do one evening without Sherlock. He didn’t mind at all that Sherlock hadn’t invited him to solve the case with him this time. And he was just fine with these stupid little thoughts that had been going on and on in his head for the whole afternoon. He was totally fine, nothing wrong with him at all. He could use a cup of tea, though.  
  
With a mug of tea finally in his hand, he realised it. It was so simple. It wouldn’t have taken this much time for Sherlock to figure out, but of course – he almost choked with even the thought of it – he hadn’t been able to talk to Sherlock about this particular problem.  
  
When was the last time he had gotten laid? It must have been months. He had been out with that sweet girl, what was her name again, Anne. He wasn’t even sure why they hadn’t gone out again. If he remembered right, she had been witty and funny and quite beautiful and known enough about astronomy to make John google a few things after getting home. He had probably told her that he would call. He should have. He would have, but then there had been some stupid case with stupid Sherlock and he had been too busy and, clearly, that was why he was now going insane and sitting in an empty, dark room thinking about Sherlock.  
  
He should phone Anne. That was it. He would phone her, she would probably tell him to fuck off for only phoning her after two months or so, but at least he would have tried. And maybe he could talk Anne around. If Sherlock finally called him to ask him to help with the case, he could say that he couldn’t come, because he had a date.  
  
***  
  
It was just a mistake. Again.  
  
John grimaced. This was almost as bad as yesterday had been. Only almost, of course, because few things were as embarrassing as having to turn around on the door of a beautiful woman and go back home, only because you somehow can’t seem to get the image of your (male) best friend’s face out of your head.  
  
Anne hadn’t understood him at all. Well, he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t understand himself at all either.  
  
He had walked home almost hoping that something would happen, like a kidnap attempt, or some robbery, and he could have called Sherlock to come and they would have run through the streets (or probably taken a taxi) and his veins would have been full of adrenaline and there simply wouldn’t have been a space in his head to wonder about why he had turned Anne down.  
  
But Sherlock hadn’t called, of course. He always called when he shouldn’t have, and never when he should.  
  
When John had finally gotten home, soaking wet because of course it had had to start raining, Sherlock had been sitting on the sofa looking completely bored.  
  
‘So, you didn’t go in,’ he had said. ‘Are you not feeling well or something?’  
  
John had stopped in the doorway and Sherlock had thrown a glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but it was almost midnight and for some incomprehensible reason Sherlock hadn’t turned the lights on, so John couldn’t really see his expression at all. He couldn’t have known if Sherlock was concerned about him (probably not) or trying to mock him (more probable, though he usually didn’t bother to). After a few seconds’ calculation he had thought that maybe it was best to shut up entirely and go to his room and try to sleep it off.  
  
Sherlock hadn’t called after him and somehow he had been disappointed.  
  
But this was worse. Just a mistake, of course, but… worse.  
  
He had been sitting in his armchair, reading a paper, or at least trying to.  
  
Sherlock had been going to the shower, stopping by the kitchen on the way for some reason that John couldn’t possibly imagine, because he had just walked around the table, watched out the window, and then gone back upstairs for the shower.  
  
Also, Sherlock’s towel had been very carelessly placed.  
  
And John had been watching.  
  
He was still flushed. He felt it. It shouldn’t have mattered, because there was no one in the room and the water was still running upstairs, which meant that it was quite improbable that Sherlock would walk into the room and see him blushing. And still he felt like hiding his face with his hands, which he did, after a few seconds of wishing that it would just go away.  
  
And why the hell had he been watching?  
  
Yesterday he had been in a movie with a smart, beautiful woman, who had acted like she was willing to kiss with John for several minutes. At least. And he had just said goodbye and gone home.  
  
And tonight he was staring at his best friend's _buttocks,_ for heaven’s sake.  
  
What the hell was wrong with him, how could he fix it, and how on earth would he prevent Sherlock from noticing that he was going mad?  
  
***

‘So,’ Sherlock said.  
  
John froze, resisting the urge to hide behind his paper. Slowly, he put the paper onto his knees and inhaled deeply. Sherlock was standing on the doorway of the kitchen, watching him with an intense stare that made his skin tingle – oh, shit, _tingle?_ Really? Was he fifteen or something? Or just scared to death?  
  
He swallowed. Well. He had known that Sherlock would notice, and, eventually, he would ask. He couldn’t really explain it, but he could at least try. They were only mistakes, after all. He had no idea if Sherlock believed him, but he would do his best to make them sound like trivial little mistakes, not important at all. Perhaps Sherlock wouldn’t mind. He probably would have more important things to think about, and they both would eventually forget about the whole thing.  
  
‘I thought you made tea,’ Sherlock said with a cock of an eyebrow.  
  
John’s mouth dropped half-open and he shut it quickly, swallowing. Sherlock just stood there, staring at him. His heart was racing. His cheeks were probably glowing red. He could feel his hands getting sweat. And Sherlock was observing him. He could feel the other man’s gaze go through his bones – really, could he do it? Of course not. He was just being paranoid. But, fuck, Sherlock never looked at him, not like this, not with that intense and sharp gaze, not like he was a puzzle that had to be solved, and he somehow _liked_ it, but… really? All those times when he tried to say something to Sherlock and he never got an answer, or the answer came half an hour late and the tone of the voice was totally uninterested, and when Sherlock just once listened to him and looked at him it had to be _now?_  
  
‘Yeah,’ he said with a voice that was weirdly cracking a little. ‘I did. I drank it all, I’m afraid. I can make some more, if you want.’  
  
Sherlock shrugged. ‘Don’t bother.’ John watched him feeling a weird mixture of fascination and sheer panic as he walked slowly through the room and stopped right in front of him. He was wearing his long black coat (inside, _why_ would he do that, wasn’t it unbearably too hot?) and his hair was somehow messier than usual, and as he stopped in front of John, he licked his upper lip absentmindedly – oh, shit. _No._ He wouldn’t watch. He would just sit here, trying not to think, trying not to stare at Sherlock’s face with nothing else than very average admiration for someone who was brilliant in every way a human being could, and in some ways even more – fuck. _Fuck._ John definitely wasn’t going to live through this. He would have to move out. He would have to move to India, or further away, or otherwise he would give himself in. He couldn’t even _watch_ Sherlock anymore, for fuck’s sake!  
  
He was ruined, he totally was.  
  
Sherlock sat down on the floor, in front of John’s armchair. Weirdly, his eyes didn’t leave John’s for a second.  
  
‘I’ve been wondering about something,’ Sherlock said, his voice completely calm, and John might have felt a little bit better had he not still been staring at him. ‘There are a few facts and I don’t seem to be able to decide whether they are connected or not. I want to be sure. So, I think I have to ask your help.’  
  
John frowned. ‘Really? My help? With connecting facts?’  
  
‘You seem suitable for this particular question,’ Sherlock said.  
  
‘Okay,’ John said. His head was hurting. His heart was racing. Maybe this was about the axe-murderer slash umbrella-murderer. Maybe this had nothing to do with him, after all. Maybe he was safe for the time being. Maybe Sherlock hadn’t noticed. Maybe there really wasn’t anything to notice at all. ‘Well… shoot, I think.’  
  
Sherlock nodded. ‘Well. You know you like women, right?’  
  
‘What?’ John barked. He felt quite uneasy, again.  
  
‘Confirm it, please,’ Sherlock said with a pleasant smile.  
  
John sighed, deeply. ‘Yeah. Yes. Yes, I do like women.’  
  
‘But you didn’t sleep with Anne, though you might have had a change – ‘  
  
‘I don’t know if I had – ‘  
  
‘You had,’ Sherlock said fast, ‘with a probability of about eighty-two percent. Of course you could have spoiled it by many things that I presume you can imagine very well. But if you had just been the usual polite and pleasant version of yourself, you would have had an eighty-two percent chance to sleep with her. That’s quite good for you. But you came home instead.’  
  
‘Well, I – ‘  
  
‘And also,’ Sherlock said, ‘you have begun staring at my arse whenever you get the chance.’  
  
John was going all white, he felt it. ‘Excuse me, I’m not – ‘  
  
Sherlock threw him a glance that was clearly saying ‘ _oh, come on, John’_ with a loud voice and a deep sigh.  
  
‘Okay,’ John said, panicking, but hell, who wouldn’t be, in a situation like this, even Sherlock himself couldn’t be this calm if he were in John’s shoes, and all he wanted was to just walk out of the room and never come back, but he couldn’t, Sherlock was sitting on the floor in front of him, legs crossed and a friendly smile on his face, and it was all too much, shit, _shit,_ ‘okay, I know what you’re talking about, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, it was just a mistake. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, I really don’t - ‘  
  
‘John,’ Sherlock said, ‘breathe. Really, breathe. I will call for help if you collapse, but I’d rather not.’  
  
‘Shit.’ John took a breath. And another. Well, it didn’t make things worse.  
  
‘I only asked for your insight on this,’ Sherlock said. ‘There’s no need to behave like I’m holding a gun against your head. I’m just asking. Are these things connected?’  
  
‘What?’ John asked.  
  
Now Sherlock looked just impatient. ‘Keep up, John, would you? You checking me out and you not wanting to sleep with a woman who’s a bit more attractive and a lot more intelligent than you are. I kind of see the connection, but still.. don’t like guessing.’  
  
Suddenly John felt almost angry. So, Sherlock was just asking him, just asking for his _insight_ on this peculiar little case. Were those things connected? How the hell would he know? Had he not been losing his mind trying to figure out why he lately had seemed to imagine quite imaginative things about Sherlock whenever he got the slightest chance?  
  
‘Unless,’ Sherlock said slowly, now looking at him a bit hesitantly, ‘unless it’s… personal?’  
  
‘Of course it’s personal!’ John snapped. ‘I don’t want to be rude, but, shit, Sherlock, just fuck off, would you? It’s personal. It’s driving me crazy. Why the hell are you asking this, anyway? Can’t you just let it go? Can’t you just – ‘ and suddenly his burst of anger fell off and he felt just tired and very, very unsure – ‘ can’t you just let it go? Please?’  
  
‘But I’d really like to know,’ Sherlock said.  
  
John exhaled deeply. ‘Why? _Why on earth_ would you really like to know?’  
  
‘Because,’ Sherlock said, frowning, ‘because it might affect my behavior.’  
  
‘I know,’ John said, ‘I’m sorry, I really am, I have to get a girlfriend, I will, I really appreciate our friendship. It’s probably just been too long for me. I really, really have to get a girlfriend. I will. And I’ll stop staring at… at your…’  
  
Somehow Sherlock didn’t seem to be quite content with his answer.  
  
‘John,’ he said with a weird edge in his voice, ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m not threatening you. I’m not complaining. I’m just merely trying to get the facts right so that I can behave accordingly.’  
  
John sighed. He felt like he was lost in the middle of a giant labyrinth. He would never get out of there. He definitely needed to have some tea now.  
  
‘I don’t have the facts, Sherlock,’ he said, and okay, two more minutes, and then he would climb over Sherlock if he must, whatever he would have to do to get away from this awful conversation that didn’t have a slightest chance of ending well. ‘I really don’t. You seem to have observed all the same things that I have. Maybe I just, oh, shit, maybe I just have some kind of an obsession with you.’  
  
‘Yeah, I know,’ Sherlock said, his tone unchanged, ‘I just don’t know if you want to sleep with me.’  
  
John stared at him, unable to do anything else.  
  
‘I’m sorry,’ Sherlock said looking rather smug, suddenly, but also something else that John couldn’t really put his finger on. ‘I tried to ask in a more subtle way. You refused to cooperate. So, there it is. If you want, I will. Not right now, of course, Lestrade will ring me in about five minutes and ask my thoughts about the case that he thought he already closed last week. It won’t be interesting but I really enjoy hearing Lestrade cursing at the moment when he realises he has been an idiot.’  
  
‘I – ‘  
  
‘I know that it will take a few minutes for your brain to deal with this. But please, try to hurry up. It’s not like you didn’t know you were fantasising about me.’  
  
‘I definitely – ‘  
  
‘Come on, John,’ Sherlock said, ‘of course you were. You are just arguing with yourself about it. But really. This is not my strongest area of expertise. I’m somehow nervous, if you must know. Perhaps sharing a bit of my… feelings with you will make you feel better, so, there it is. I really would like some kind of an answer quite soon, even if it’s not a simple yes or no.’  
  
‘Why would you be nervous?’ John said, surprised to find out that he could still speak aloud.  
  
Sherlock threw a glance at him. ‘Don’t make me say it.’  
  
‘Say what?’  
  
Sherlock shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, suddenly looking rather surly. ‘Well. I was quite certain we would come to this, though I hoped we wouldn’t. I… I have some kind of warm feelings towards you, John. Well, of course you know that. I text you sometimes for no apparent reason, after all. But I’m talking about, well, _warmer_ feelings, and not thoroughly what you would probably call friendly. I mean, I like you a lot as a friend but there is also some kind of sexual attraction, and it’s – ‘  
  
‘ _What?_ ’ John said and realised right away that he had interrupted Sherlock in the middle of… something that he would definitely have wanted him to finish. ‘Sorry. Keep going.’  
  
Sherlock looked quite impatient. ‘Really, John. I think I have said enough.’  
  
‘Finish that last sentence, please,’ John asked politely, though at the same time he was wondering if the rate that his heart was pounding was going to cause his body some serious damage.  
  
‘Okay. But this is it. This is all I’m going to say about this for now. There’s some kind of sexual attraction, and it’s kind of strong, I think, although of course it depends on which scale it should be measured. To be more concrete, I _really_ like it when you watch me go to the shower. I wouldn’t mind you touching me, either, although that would probably take a little practise at first, we can’t perhaps go straight to the point, but you could start with my upper body, that would be convenient, and there’s this thing about your mouth – ‘  
  
‘Enough,’ John barked, ‘enough! I get it. I… sorry. I think I’m losing it. But… yes. Yes. I would – ‘  
  
Then the phone rang.  
  
John cursed.  
  
Sherlock glanced at the mobile. ‘It’s Lestrade, great, I thought it would take more time for him to – ‘  
  
‘Don’t answer it,’ John said, just a second too late, and hell, why was he saying it, wouldn’t it be great if Lestrade saved him from this conversation? But something was tingling inside of him – what a stupid word – and he really, really, really wanted to start with Sherlock’s upper body, and those lips, and he wanted to close his eyes and imagine Sherlock saying _there’s this thing about your mouth_ again, this time against his ear, Sherlock’s breath hot against his skin, their jaws barely touching each other, and then, then –  
  
He groaned. Aloud. Shit.  
  
Sherlock stopped talking to Lestrade and looked at him.  
  
John could hear Lestrade’s voice still talking hastily in the distance.  
  
Sherlock put the mobile aside.  
  
‘Really?’ he asked, moving a few inches towards John. ‘Are you sure?’  
  
‘No,’ John muttered. ‘Not at all.’  
  
‘I won’t hurt you,’ Sherlock said and then frowned, ‘I think.’  
  
John laughed out aloud. Well, Sherlock was only a few inches away from him now. There was no way to stop this from happening. ‘Oh, fuck. Yes. Yes, I’m sure, you idiot. I’m sure. Just… just do that thing again.’  
  
Sherlock looked puzzled. ‘What thing?’  
  
‘Tell me,’ John said, barely realising that he was panting, _oh shit,_ he was panting and Sherlock was staring at him with his intense, sharp gaze, trying to solve him perhaps, and he _loved_ it, he absolutely loved it, and he had genuinely thought that imagining Sherlock commanding him to lay on the floor in order to climb on top of him and kiss him had been just an error of his mind, but perhaps it hadn’t been, perhaps he really, really wanted Sherlock to kiss him, ‘tell me about the thing about my mouth, please, I interrupted you, I’m sorry.’  
  
Sherlock’s gaze lowered and he licked his upper lip just a little. ‘Well. I kind of lost the thought, really.’  
  
‘Oh, fuck, Sherlock,’ John muttered. ‘Really. If you are just messing with me, I’ll kill you, I swear it, or I’ll make you go to lunch with my parents and then I’ll kill you – ‘  
  
‘I’m not,’ Sherlock said with a serious voice. ‘Okay. What should we do next? How could we proceed? I think we confirmed that you are willing to sleep with me, but we aren’t quite there yet, and, John, all this talking is driving me a bit edgy, I’d prefer something that involves some touching, would you mind?’  
  
‘No,’ John muttered, ‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t.’  
  
And he kissed him.  
  
Sherlock winced just a little, like he had been surprised.  
  
John locked his head between his fingers and for about a second he thought that he had gone utterly insane, he was kissing a man, he was kissing _his best friend,_ but then his best friend was kissing him back, at first carefully and slowly and like he had never done that before, and John almost felt like that, too, and then Sherlock opened his lips just a little and let out a small noise that made John’s stomach twist in a very pleasant way and grabbed his hair with both his hands and then, then John didn’t think about anything anymore.  
  
Except that well, it probably hadn’t been just a mistake, after all.


End file.
